Webcams date to an earlier era of the internet: the very first one, in 1991, was pointed at a coffee pot in a computer lab at Cambridge University. But the tradition lives on in various corners of the web, which comes in handy when, say, an enormous storm is barreling toward the East Coast of the United States.

The webcams listed below should provide a good view of Hurricane Sandy’s arrival in New York City, on Long Island, and along the Jersey Shore. If you know of other webcams we should add, email me or send me links on Twitter.

Virginia Beach

Maryland

And this isn’t a webcam, but Instacane is a great, intimate view of how people are experiencing Sandy as documented on Instagram. (Thanks to Chris Ackermann for the tip.) It might also get interesting over at NSKYC, which displays the average color of the New York City sky, captured every five minutes.